Posted on 13 February 2008 | No Comment

Yesterday marked “Day 1” of tradeshow madness here in Las Vegas. I made my first stop by the United Tradeshow which has downsized from 3 large rooms of exhibitors to one room. It was quit shocking to see such a small gathering of brands. Here are some of the stand-outs from the show.

Not new to the scene but continuing to hold her own, is Kylee of Miss Wax jewelry. Her latest and greatest is a collab with graff writer Retna of the legendary Seventh Letter Crew. At $70 retail for either the necklace or the earrings, you’ll want to add these to your collection.

From Los Angeles TC, I fell hard for this “sleeping tee”. There is something about pajama inspired outerwear that gets me every time. This extra long and cozy tee has an asymmetrical hem line so you can style it to your liking (tie it up, add one of those plastic t-shirt ring thins from the 90’s…)

I happily found t-shirt brand S.O.S or Spoonful of Sugar. It’s tough to stand-out in the t-shirt world, there are a million and one t-shirt brands. But S.O.S. got me with their Mickey Mouse graphics…I am a sucker for Mickey.

Although the brands (the mister line is called Nature’s Mistakes) have been around for two years, this was their first tradeshow appearance. Started by Pasadena Art School student, Demetrius, all tees are screened to order by hand. You can only imagine how time consuming that is. So, Demetrius partnered up with his friend Matt so they could come even more correct and brake out onto the scene in proper fashion. Here is the graphic that lured me in…

And this is the one that kept me around a bit longer…not to mention made me laugh out loud.

And there’s something about a mickey skull and cross bones that makes me swoon.

And a cozy for your 40 is always worth mentioning…

We came across the hand-drawn wonders of SPRFKR a year or so ago. And always have to stop and see what’s new with the man, Marco. This lovely lady is the first he has drawn in a year…

And this trio of brake out color is something special he worked up. Marco generally works in black and white with a little red at times, so there had to be a reason for not only brightly colored graphics but also a 3-D graphic (the middle design)…things that are far off from the O.G. SPRFKR aesthetic. He was eager to share with me that these designs are “for the 90’s shoe people shit”, I had to laugh!

And lastly Hysteric Glamour…Certainly not a new brand but one that has maintained a defined look of rock ‘n roll look that screams “bad ass” for many years. I was first introduced to this Japanese brand in the mid 90’s. They have slowly made their way into the U.S market over the years and this marked their 2nd tradshow appearance. Always quality and always attention to detail. Hopefully you will recognize where a lot of folks have gotten some design inspiration from over the years…